New State Prison Puts All Inmates In Solitary

Some will never leave; for the foreseeable future, all state executions will be performed here.

"Confinement at Tamms is a tough deal," said warden George Welborn. "This place was built for the worst of the worst."

Among them are Brisbon, notorious in the system for murdering an inmate, holding four officers hostage and committing scores of other staff assaults behind bars.

Another is Alton Stewart, who got 30 years for armed robbery in Champaign but picked up six consecutive sentences for repeatedly possessing weapons inside Pontiac.

On the day he moved into Tamms, Stewart, 42, leaned somberly against a cell door in the intake ward and watched a video about what his life would be like in the months to come.

"They want to break you down here," Stewart said afterward, shaking his head. "It depends on how strong your mind is."

Critics say that is a major problem with the super-max concept. Isolation hurts prisoners, they contend, perhaps irreversibly.

"How can you learn to make it in a less restrictive environment when all you can do is sit in your cell and try not to go insane?" said Chicago lawyer Jan Susler, who has litigated many prisoner rights cases.

That may have a dangerous rather than beneficial result for the prisons and for society after the inmates are released, said Mike Mahoney, president of the John Howard Association, a prison watchdog group.

"Sensory deprivation, lack of programs--it's like lockdowns in most institutions," Mahoney said.

"They serve a purpose to accomplish a short-range goal, but then you have diminishing returns because all they do is get angry. When they get off lockdown, they will strike out at somebody."

But prison officials say they believe the approach will work, based on what they say is improved behavior when lockdowns and segregation are threatened at other prisons.

Already, prison officials think they are seeing signs of success. Welborn said that, as he walked the halls of another prison recently, inmates who knew him called out to him as he passed by.